Things Learned from OT Podcast

The podcast episode that I chose to listen to was "Cancer-Related Cognitive Dysfunction". After reading the titles of the episodes, I chose this particular one because it is something that I thought probably affects a lot to people and I didn't know much about it so it seemed to pick a good choice for me. People that have cognitive dysfunction during or after dealing with cancer and the treatments that go along with it is something that I have been able to witness in a couple people, but I didn't realize how wide spread it is and how OTs can help in the intervention against it. The main person that comes to my mind is a family friend who has had brain cancer twice. I have noticed many cognitive changes in him over the years which makes sense to me because of the type of cancer that he has, but I never really thought of it affecting so many that suffer from breast cancer and other types. During the podcast they said that 75% of patients with breast cancer suffer from some kind of cognitive dysfunction. A lot of times people will refer to it as chemo brain or chemo fog, but it can be caused from the cancer itself and from many of the other treatments administered for cancer. It can cause problems with problem solving, short-term memory, and multitasking among other things. These side effects can show up and continue up to even 20 years after the person's last treatment. Because of the many thing that can cause cognitive problems and changes when a person has cancer, cognitive dysfunction often takes a long time to be diagnosed or it may not ever be. This puts more stressors on the person while they are trying to get back into a normal routine and living the life that they want to be able to. This is where an OT can come into play.

Even though most often there will not be a doctor's order for OT treatment for a cancer patient, hopefully if they are being challenged by cognitive dysfunction they will make it to an OT somehow. Cancer-related cognitive dysfunction can affect a person in many ways including mentally, physically, psychosocially, and in their whole healing process. An OT can help these types of clients to find ways to cope and overcome these delays by helping them to make a routine for their day. This can help them take on one task at a time, know when they are most capable of performing tasks, and to plan ahead and be prepared for certain tasks that may be more challenging. They can also help to get the family involved as much as they are willing and the client would prefer to hopefully help with smaller tasks or more social situations like remembering names and carrying on full conversations with others. Many times when a person might be dealing with cognitive dysfunction, they might not even realize how bad it is or they might become depressed in not being able to do what they want to and this is where family members could also help in getting them the correct diagnosis and intervention.

Cancer-related cognitive dysfunction is not something that is told to cancer patients many times as a lasting affect of the cancer itself or treatments. Because of this, people are not as prepared as they possibly could be many times and then that makes the challenge even harder to overcome. With the younger and younger ages that breast cancer is being diagnosed, this is leaving moms of young kids  to have to deal with these symptoms when they are trying to take care of themselves and their kids. I hope that more podcasts and studies like the one I listened to are published to make this a more well known topic and to hopefully help cancer patients that have already been through so much to be able to heal and return back to the life they want to live.

OT Meme

This meme is for the common misconception that occupational therapists only help people to find a job. That can be one thing that an OT can help a client to do if that is important to them and if that is a goal that they want to reach, but it's definitely not the only thing that an OT does :)

"Blissful Ordinariness"

Personally, I am not a person that likes to get out of my comfort zone. When I go into a new situation, the unfamiliarity is sometimes unnerving to me in just not knowing what to expect or not having a game plan for how I am going to tackle whatever the obstacle is in front of me. One of the most recent examples of this for me was when I started my graduate program in occupational therapy. I was in a new city (a very big one I may add), around people I didn't know, staying at a house that wasn't mine, and at the beginning of a journey that was scary/exciting/confusing/every other emotion you can think of. This term of "blissful ordinariness" makes me think of those first couple weeks of school and how I longed to have a routine, a confidence of knowing what I was doing was right, and to just be familiar with where I was and how to live my new day to day life. Thankfully it didn't take long for those days of ordinariness to come my way.

In the field of OT, we have to remember that some clients come to us when their world has been turned upside down. Maybe they can't take care of themselves anymore or they can't even pick up a glass of water to give themselves a drink. Not only has their sense of self-sufficiency went away, but maybe they can't take care of another person that they are responsible for or they can't fulfill a role that gives them a large part of their identity. A lot of times the term "ordinary" is not seen in a positive light, but for people in these situations having an ordinary day would be something that they would welcome with open arms. As future OTs, we will focus on getting back to that specific client's "normal" as close as we possibly can. We look at that person and see what is important to them physically, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually to help them achieve what is meaningful to them and what serves as part of their identity. Ordinary days can feel to some of us as boring or meaningless, but for those that have had their ordinary taken away I'm sure that they would feel "blissful" to them.